Joeys ‘recruits’ fill gaps
KIEREN Paliouras and Cam Tudor will be like “new recruits” in a St Joseph’s team desperate to atone for a disappointing premiership defence, coach Heath Jamieson says.
Jamieson yesterday confirmed stars Paliouras and Tudor would step back from the VFL after successive campaigns at Geelong, bolstering Joeys’ list in the wake of recent departures.
Onballer Ryan Williams and key position player Dale Carson have joined BFL club Anglesea, leaving Joeys without two of their best players.
But Jamieson is confident the permanent inclusions of ball magnet Paliouras and ruck/forward Tudor would help fill the gaps.
St Joseph’s is also on the hunt for a frontline ruckman, with Josh Hovey set for a new role in 2017. “We’d like a 6’8 bloke to tap it down our onballers’ necks,” Jamieson said.
“We’re not going to play Hovey in the ruck next year. We’ve probably hurt his development by playing him as an undersized ruckman. That’s a hole we’ve got to fill and we’re in talks with a few ruckmen.”
Tudor, who is in America holidaying with Paliouras and a host of Joeys players, can step into the ruck.
But Jamieson is hopeful of recruiting another big man to allow Tudor to push forward.
“A lot of people are finding it hard to get some players in,” Jamieson said.
“We’ve stoked a few fires but we haven’t got anyone as yet. It’s all about retention for our club.
“We’ve lost Dale and Ryan but we’ve kept our whole list. Our footy manager has spoken to the whole group and they’re keen to atone for last year.
“We expect gradual improvement. We get David Fawkes and Reid Adams back from knee recos and they will be like two new recruits for us as well.
“Jacko Davis played five or so games for us last year and hopefully we can get a full year from him.”
Promising youngsters Tom Denning and Jackson McLachlan will step up from the Geelong Falcons, giving Joeys flexibility in attack.
“We’ll look to fast track our juniors like we did last year with Patty Kelleher and James Hickey,” Jamieson said.
“We want to make sure there’s games there for our under-18 boys.”
And while a straight-sets exit crushed St Joseph’s dream of back-to-back flags, Jamies- on is confident his team can contend next season.
“We believe we can,” he said. “Obviously last year didn’t go to plan, but we lost some players that we could ill afford to lose.
“We didn’t think we’d have 10 different players from the grand final side the previous year and we probably didn’t see that coming. We also didn’t see the fact that Tommy Atkins and a few others would play a full year at the VFL.
“I’m a strong believer that you hit your peak around 60 games and our list looks like 9-12 players have the ability to hit 60 games of senior GFL footy and our age bracket will see more improvement.”